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| Executive Producer Leslie Stifelman |
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LESLIE STIFELMAN winner of the 2007 Peabody Award for her HBO Documentary series The Music In Me has a widely varied music career as a conductor, pianist, producer and consultant. She is a creative collaborator and performer and an ardent advocate of music education for children. Her work spans the world of music through performances, recordings and television extending from the concert hall to Broadway.
Currently Ms. Stifelman is the Music Director for the Tony and Grammy award winning Broadway hit musical CHICAGO. As the show’s conductor, she has been responsible for performances of the longest running revival in the history of Broadway. This position has given her the opportunity to bring a number of stars to the show coaching Usher, Melanie Griffith, Brooke Shields, Patti Labelle, Huey Lewis, Patrick Swayze, George Hamilton, Smokey Robinson, John O’Hurley, Rita Wilson and Wayne Brady.
The world of musical theater has provided many other opportunities for Ms. Stifelman. She was the Associate Conductor for the recent Broadway revival of WONDERFUL TOWN and recorded music for Arthur Miller’s THE RIDE DOWN MT. MORGAN starring Patrick Stewart. Through her affiliation with the acclaimed ENCORES! series at City Center, she has performed in eight productions including CHICAGO, PAJAMA GAME, ZEIGFIELD FOLLIES OF 1936, BLOOMER GIRL and WONDERFUL TOWN.
In 2003 Ms. Stifelman and her colleagues Bebe Neuwirth, Ann Reinking, and Roger Rees established the Green Moon Gang, a theatrical production company whose first collaboration was the off-Broadway show HERE LIES JENNY, a revue of songs by Kurt Weill. Following its successful New York production at the Zipper Theater, JENNY enjoyed a held-over run in San Francisco. Additional productions in 2006 are planned for Boston, Chicago and Cleveland.
Continuing her on-going collaboration with Ms. Neuwirth, she helped to create Vamps: Songs of Kander & Ebb and Weill. As its musical director, Ms. Stifelman assisted in the selection of the songs and supervised the orchestrations by Don Sebesky and preparation of musical materials. She has conducted this program with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony and at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Ordway Performing Arts Center, the Kravitz Performing Arts Center and the Michigan Summer Music Festival. Upcoming performances are scheduled with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Rhode Island Philharmonic and at the University of Las Vegas.
In collaboration with some of the world’s most esteemed musicians, Ms. Stifelman has designed programs and performed with violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, conductor Marin Alsop and jazz pianist Dick Hyman. One highlight of these collaborations includes Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg’s Nonesuch recording of Humoresque with Ms. Stifelman as piano soloist performing with
the London Symphony Orchestra. Following the release of this recording, Ms. Stifelman designed and performed as piano soloist in a concert/film version of Humoresque with Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg and singer Janis Siegel, conducted by Ms. Alsop at Lincoln Center. Ms. Stifelman also collaborated in programming American Landscapes: Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Friends, a concert of American works by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Jelly Roll Morton at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Ms. Stifelman continues to accompany Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg in recital and benefit performances and was featured in Speaking In Strings, the Academy Award Nominated HBO documentary that profiled the violinist’s life.
With Artistic Director and Conductor Marin Alsop and the Concordia Orchestra, Ms. Stifelman was fortunate to have a 10-year association during which she held a variety of positions including Piano Soloist, Orchestral Pianist, Artistic Advisor, Artistic Administrator, Director of Education and Interim Executive Director. The orchestra’s success included over 50 New York City concerts at Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, several commercial recordings and numerous commissions and world premiere performances. Among these achievements:
- ON THE TOWN: New York premiere of the concert version of the classic musical by Leonard Bernstein and Betty Comden & Adolph Green.
- RADIO RHAPSODY: A concert version of a radio show with music unearthed from the Paul Whiteman Archives featuring the Manhattan Rhythm Kings and Ivy Austin; under a research grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, this was presented as part of the Orchestra’s Tenth Anniversary season.
- The Symphonic Music of James P. Johnson: Inaugural concert for Jazz @ Lincoln Center featuring world premieres of the symphonic music of the legendary jazz pianist and composer whose song Charleston changed America in the 1920’s.
Other collaborations include piano duos with Dick Hyman, recordings with singer Dawn Upshaw and concerts with the fiddler Mark O’Connor.
Ms. Stifelman was the Artist-in-Residence for Oregon’s Festival of American Music from 1993 through 1996. She has attended the Aspen, Tanglewood and Eastern Music Festivals as well as the Music Academy of the West. She has performed as piano soloist with the Concordia Orchestra at Lincoln Center, the Eugene Symphony, the Richmond Symphony, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and the EOS Orchestra.
Her recordings feature a wide variety of classical, contemporary and jazz repertoire producing an extensive discography with releases on the labels BMG, RCA Victor, Angel, Nonesuch, DRG, Koch International, Albany and MusicMasters. Her television performances include appearances on The TodayShow, Good Morning America, Charlie Rose, The Regis & Kelly Show and The Tony Awards in 1996 and 2005. Based on her 5 years of research for the Concordia Orchestra’s concerts, Ms. Stifelman wrote James P. Johnson: A Composer Rescued, which was published by the Columbia Journal of American Studies. She is also the Artistic Editor of the score from CHICAGO soon to be published by Hal Leonard Corporation.
A fervent advocate for arts education for children, Ms. Stifelman is the President and Creative Director of Symfunny Toons™ Inc., a company dedicated to the development of television programs and interactive products for children to learn about music. Her company developed and is currently in production on the HBO documentary television series The Music in Me with Ms. Stifelman serving as Executive Producer. These programs will begin to be broadcast in the Fall of 2006. She will also be producing a companion concert tour based on the series. Ms. Stifelman directed and designed education programs for the Concordia Orchestra receiving the first Bernstein Education Through the Arts Foundation Award. She was the field consultant for Artsvision and the Annenberg Foundation’s Arts and Education Needs and Resources Assessment for the New York City Board of Education. This research led to the establishment of the Center for Arts and Education.
Among her charitable work, Ms. Stifelman is proud to have spearheaded a campaign to donate a Steinway piano to Target House at St. Jude’s Hospital, a long-term care residence for children with cancer. The instrument, which she used in the show CHICAGO for over 5 years was signed by the entire creative team including composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb and the original cast members. Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, an organization to which Ms. Stifelman frequently donates her time and talents, sold it at auction to the Target Corporation.
Ms. Stifelman received her Bachelor of Music from the New England Conservatory and went on to earn her Master of Music from the Mannes College of Music. She is a Steinway artist.
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